


this little locked box

by missdulcerosea



Category: Arthurian Mythology & Related Fandoms
Genre: Fluff, Light Angst, Multi, will tag as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2020-12-28 19:41:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21142145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missdulcerosea/pseuds/missdulcerosea
Summary: ...is so filled to the brim with memories that it nearly bursts open.Or, a collection of my Arthurian related drabbles compiled into a neat little book from my tumblr.





	1. scars

“Lord, you’re gorgeous.”

Those are the words Lancelot hears when he wakes up. Dinadan is not touching him when he opens his eyes, but it is Lancelot who reaches over so that his hand is pressed against his neck. He has heard those words before from others, but it is the way they are said now - and perhaps it is because of the person who speaks those words - that makes it all so different. It is still dark even with the windows open, dawn has not come leaving the weak sputtering candle in the room to cast distorted shadows over them both.

“You think so? Even with all my scars?” Lancelot asks him. He thinks of the scar tissue from battle wounds patterning his skin beneath his clothes, of the scratches pale against the skin on his arms where all of his freckles are. For a moment he wonders if this is going to end like times before, where he leaves Dinadan to lapse back into sleep and thinks to himself about how inevitable it all really is. He does not think much with it ending that way with others, but he is not certain if that is what he wants with Dinadan.

“I know,” he says, and leans over to dot kisses all over Lancelot’s nose and cheeks and against his jawline. They are all soft and there are moments where Dinadan pulls away and pauses, as if he asks if Lancelot wants feather-soft kisses and to be told he’s gorgeous. And he does, because it’s different this time. It isn’t like with others.

They don’t speak, but it’s when Dinadan swipes his tongue against Lancelot’s lips in a kiss that he flushes pink. They stay like that and then both pull away for air.

He feels Dinadan’s arms wrap around him in the dark of the room, forgets the marks embedded against his body. Now would be the time one of them might say “I love you”, and this time they would mean it. But they don’t need the sound of words now, at least that’s what Lancelot thinks.

“Even with all your scars,” Dinadan echoes. “No - it’s because of all your scars. Without them, it’s not really you. And I’m just glad it’s you.”

Lancelot thought he wouldn’t need to hear words, but those are the words he wanted and needed to hear.


	2. gentle nightmare

“If it hadn’t been for you, perhaps things wouldn’t have turned out like this.”

While everything has been dipped in the blackness of night, Percival can still make out the tarnished blade of Mordred’s sword gleaming silver beneath the dim moonlight. He can feel the wounds at his sides beginning to sting—hardly enough to get him killed, but they still sting. His breathing is the one sound that manages to break through the poisoned silence, an antidote that has not been administered fast enough.

“And what about you?” Percival asks him. He stabs his sword into the ground and inhales the sweet, rich scent of earth. “What about you? Your own father, Mordred? You’d really forsake your father’s happiness if it meant getting the revenge you wished for—Mordred, or Sir Mordred because you’ll at least be a knight even if you’ll never be a king—this is the man who took you in because no one else would.”

“How can you say that? Your father died long ago. You don’t tread the world I walk.”

(They are chained by that damned Grail, Percival realizes. They are ensnared in the briar of thorns together.)

“Keep trying. For me. For yourself.”

“Why should I have things stay the same for your sake? Aren’t you the one who managed to arrive too late?”

Mordred is all too willing to leave Percival to bleed out to the thorns if it means escape, no matter how many scars he leaves behind. He is willing to wake up from the nightmare even if it means—or perhaps because—leaving Percival behind. 

“Like I said,” Percival forces out, “You can do this for yourself.”

Mordred throws his sword down upon the earth, grabbing hold of Percival by the collar.

“I will get what I went after. And I won’t let people like you who think they know what’s best stand in my way.”


	3. gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prose experimenting. kinda. percihad.

ever since you’ve been gone all i’ve seen is gold. gold gleaming on the edges of autumn leaves, gold in the brassy sunlight that illuminates the room, gold at the edges of a sunset. it reminds me of your hair—how soft your hair is and how you’d let me stroke and tangle my fingers in it most days. it reminds me of the light when you shifted just right and it’d gleam off your spectacles—your eyes’d always scrunch up when i’d try them on and ask how i looked. gold reminds me of the things that once were, and the things i’d lost. but after you made it back it reminds me of the things i’ve found again.


	4. breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning: implications of doing the deed, as well as one (1) swear word.

“Promise you won’t leave me?”

Those are the words that clear the air of its poisoned silence. The room is dark, the one faintly flickering candle that illuminated the squallid place snuffed out. They had their time in the dark together, and again Dinadan promised to himself that he wouldn’t be pulled down breathless again. This moment will not last, because the beetle and the worm find their way into everything sooner or later.

He doesn’t expect Lancelot to say anything back though. It’s small, a hollow whisp of an exhale once Dinadan says what he has to say.

“I’ll stay,” he says.

He knows that Lancelot will break his promise, just like he has before. How many times, Dinadan wonders, have you told other women—or other men, for that matter—those sorts of things? “I’ll stay”, my ass. You’ll just be here long enough till my eyes close, and then you’ll leave me alone.

But even though he could let those words spill out, all that escapes Dinadan’s lips is a defeated exhale. He turns so that his back is to Lancelot. In the dark they will keep no secrets: They will not see one another’s scars, nor the freckles scattered across Dinadan’s arms and face, nor every imperfection. The darkness will hide it all. The only sign that they’re here at all are faint silhouettes shrouded in black and blue like bruises.

(Though Lancelot was gentle like always, knowing what will come leaves Dinadan feeling like he has been bruised.)

Whether it is the warmth and comfort of the heavy quilt that rocks him to sleep or the simple fact that he cannot keep his eyes open (Or perhaps both), Dinadan loses himself to sleep, the slow inhale and exhale of Lancelot’s breath out of tandem with his fading into background noise. He doesn’t open his eyes till the morning when sunlight drenches him, and he wakes up alone.


End file.
